The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1887-04-03
Temperance In all Things.

"Old age has the foundation Of its
Joy or its sorrow laid in youth. Ev-
cry stone laid in the foundation takes
hold of every stone in the wall, up
to the very caves of the building
and every deed, right or wrong, that
transpires in youth reaches forward,
and has a relation to all the after part
of mans life. A mans life is not
like the contiguous cells in a bees
houeycomb; it is more like the sepa-
rate parts Of plant which unfolds
out of itself, every part bearing re-
lation to all that aniecede. That
which one does in youth is the root,
and all the after parts, middle age
and old age, are the bran hes and
the fruits, whose character the roots
will determine.
Every man belongs to an economy
in which he has a right to calculate,
or his friends for him, on eighty
years as fair term Of life. His body
is placed in world adapted TO nour-
ish and protect it. Nature is con-
genial. There are clements enough
of mischief in it if a man pleases to
find them out. A man can wear his
body out as quickly as he pleases,
destroy it if he will; but, after all,
the great laws of nature are nourish-
ing laws, and comprehensively re-
garded, nature is the universal nurse,
the universal physician of our race,
guarding US against evil, warn
ing US of it by inoipient pains,
setting up signals of danger
not outwardly, but inwardly,
and cautioniRg us by sorrows
and by pain for our benefit. Eve y
immoderate draft which is made by
the appetites and passions is so much
set forward to be cashed in old age.
We may sin at one end, but God
takes it off at the other. Every man
has stored up for him some eighty
years if he knows how to keep them,
and those eighty years, like bank of
deposit, are full of treasure; but
youth. through ignorance or through
immoderate passions, is wont con-
tinually to draw checks on old age.
Men do not suppose that they are do,
ing it, although told that the wicked
shall not live cut half their days.
men are accustomed to look upon
the excuses Of youth as something
that belongs to that time. They say
that of course the young, like colts
unbridled, will disport themselves.
There is no harm in colts disportiDg
themselves, but colt never gets
drunk. | do not object to any
amount Of gayety or vivacity that lies
within the bounds of reason or of
health: but | do reject and abhor
as worthy TO be stlgmatized as die
honorable aud unmanly, every such
course in yoath as takes away Vigor,
strength aud purity from cd age. [
do not believe that any man should
take the candle Of his old age and
Light it by the vices of his youth,
Every man that transcends nature S
laws in youth is taking beforehand
those treasures that are stored up
for his old age; he taking the food
that should have been his sustenance
in old age, and exhausCDg it in riot
GUS living in his youth. Mere gaycty
and exhilaration are wholesome;
they violate no law, moral or physi-
cal.
II do not object to mirth or gayety,
but | do object to any mans making
an animal of himself by living for the
qualification Of his own animal pas
sions. Peol lie frequently think that
to require, in the conduct of youth,
that which we expect in later life,
has something of Puritanism in it.
Men have an impression that youth
is very much like wine, crude and
insipid until it has ferMented; but
when it has fermented, and thrown
down the lees, and the scum has been
drawn of, the great body between is
sound and wholesome and beautiful.
am not one that thinks so. | think
that youth is the beginning of the
plant life, and that every wart or ex-
cresence is so much enfeeblement of
its fruit bearing power. | do not
believe that any man is the better for
having learned the whole career Of
drunkenness or of lust, or the daily
ings or iudulgences that be-
long to morbid life. A
young man that has gone
through these things may be saved at
last; but in after life he has not the
sensibiity, nor the purity, nor the
moral stamina that he ought to have.
He has gone through an experience
but for which his manhood would
have been both stronger and nobler.
thor ughly disbelieve that a man
is any better for having in his youth
passed through an experience that
developed his animal nature and his
lustful appetites. Excess in youth,
in regard to animal indulgences, is
bankruptcy in cid age,
Fer this reason | deprecate late
hours or irregular sleep. People
ask me frequently; DO you thisk
that there is any harm in dancingY
No, | do not. There is much
good in it. De you, then, object to
dancing parties?' No; in themselves
| do not. But where unknit youth,
unripe muscle, unsettled and un.
hardened nerves are put through an
excess of excitement, heated with
stimulants, fed lrregularly and with
unwholesOme food, surrounded with
gayety which is excessive and which
is protracted through hours when
they should be asleep, | object, not
because Of the dancing, but because
of the dissipation. 1t is taking the
time that unquestionably was in
tended for sleep, and spending it in
the highest state of exhilaration and
excitement. The harm is not in the
dancing itself; tor if they danced as
do the peasants, in the open ar,
upon the grass under the trees, aud
in the day, it might be commended,
not as virtuous, but as still belong
ing to those negative things that
may be beautiful. But the
wassail in the night, the
wagtaf,IlnasS-T will not say of prp-